Voila ce que j'ai fait. Il est certains que des fautes/imprecisions doivent demeurer. On ne peut pas dire que je sois vraiment bilingue, et il y a de nombreuses fois où je ne comprenais pas vraiment le fond du sens. J'ai fait comme j'ai pensé être le mieux.
Si certains voient des fautes ou de menières d'exprimer les choses, qu'ils n'hésitent pas...
GTPlay main facts:
- Top french website on Gran Turismo games
- Daily content updates
- More than 300 000 connections
- 730 board users / 105 000 board posts
- Both team and solo hot lap competition, with full automation and independent verifications
- Monthly online magazine helding a GT photo contest
- Live events with the community, a lot of fun and even a love story
GTPlay story
Hello, I am called Frizzou (in real life, Christophe), this is Gran turismo website true story:
It began in July 2001 with Gran Turismo 3 launch; there is at least 2 or 3 reasons that gave birth to this beautiful adventure: GTPlay.com that will came out of ground a few months later….
At that time, many people working on this project (and myself) were on the gran turismo pages of the “jeuxvideo.com” website, which eventually offers me a place as moderator (December 2001), but we also were on granturismo3.fr.st, SuperYoh’s website, where he quickly set up the idea of a championship on all sorts of grounds (road car, rally car, gt championship ….)
First significant events took place during summer 2001: in those days, we could say that three people out of four on jeuxvideo.com
were also on gt3.fr.st, on the one hand we had the website and on the other hand, a brand new community gathering from all around. This was the beginning of a nice virtual story.
After the first virtual championship, which was won by myself in August 2001, users of both websites decided to rise the level of the championship, by creating a team challenge. It was ChildrenOv2KoRn who first wished to found his team (the B.O.C, beware of children). Very attracted to the idea, porlus, me and some others joined him and created one that nowadays still exists (run by the one they once called “big chief”: myself).
But only one team could have no future. So other people followed the lead, SuperYoh and JuanPablo (Orecas), Zell (Néos), Zonda, RCW, CGV, and all the team of ATC, along with the V12s (nickmaned the "Chebeu"), or Buthane, and many other teams… In spite of the split in almost every team that was with B.O.C, they still take more or less part of our community.
But neither the type of championship, nor gt3.fr.st rules fitted to a team championship. Let's remember: in an evening in September 2001, we were about 30 people on a chat led by SueperYoh, JuanPablo and myself, and we only needed one hour to design what will become the GT Cup. A championship gathering 6 teams of 6 players, who would have to compete for a period of about half a year, with two different rankings : one for the pilots and one for the teams.
While the competition took place on gt3.fr.st, jeuxvideo.com held the competition threads, despite the moderator made it with reluctance.
A third entity appeared: Teamsgt3.fr.st, a website whose aim was to inform teams about recent developments and provide logistics with daily updates on team selections. Obviously it was a mess, so I decided to clear the situation up.
The GT Cup “1” went without an itch, Oreca and ATC led. Joy everywhere!
I took over from the former moderator of jv.com on December 2001, I brought forth the community spirit which was dying at this moment. Many users were missing, among them the ATC. We all thought that the end was near, comforted by SuperYoh's failure. He could have put an end to the website, but he left it in my unskilled hands, providing me with full access and property. After a brainstorming with others users (Zell, JuanPablo, Brayann, Raiden, MiniMi and others), we decided to took the chance to rally all the emergent community to a single structure (named by Zell) : GTPlay was born! Couples of weeks later, generic information and help content about game were online, alongside competition guide and event frame, starting with the GTCup #2.
As habits usually last, people linger on jeuxvideo.com; we had to wait until September 2002 to see everyone on GTPlay, at the time when we first talked about a GT live event back at my place, in Normandy. This live was a tremendous success, allowing every user (even they did not attend it in fact), to draw closer. An everlasting couple, involving Dj, a board administrator and my sister Nini, is the living proof of it.
Small but significant changes have been made the year after. First, we created the independent GT Cops, whose mission is to analyse replays and race data for the competition sake and reliability, seeking restlessly for off-tracks and minor wall touches. Second, GTPlay entered the Board challenge, an international competition involving all major GT websites all around the world, thus being the first international club contest (but unofficial) on Gran Turismo.
2003, another live took place in Normandy, involving users (Buth, dj, Nini, MiniMi, Juan Pablo, Zell and Poleman), Gran Turismo and Super Soakers. The same year, we established a participation record for the GTCup, in addition to a great result during the third edition of the Board Challenge.
At the end of 2004, tension appeared among us, many people have grown up, having less time for the game and the website. GT4 release had been delayed once again and we got bad result at the fourth Board Challenge. The forum was less crowded, so that I wanted to give up for the first time. Yet, the last remaining GTPlay members gave me strength to go on, I shook myself up and designed the whole new form of GTPlay in June 2005, new art craft, new design, new programation. We took the sixth place out of 14 on Board Challenge that time.
From now on, GTPlay regain all its strength and its former community, some of them definitely left but new ones took quickly their place, no loosening all in all. We achieved what we wanted all along, with our world wide known pilots in GT Cup.
We are now working on new developments for the website such as database, massive news update and improved automation for the cup. The main innovation is the publication monthly of an online GTMag, with bashing design, news and even a photo contest.
Specail thanks :
A great thank for all the website’s staff for their work and support:
http://www.gtplay.com/contenu_divers.ph ... ic_id=3002. GTPlay stands on my own work but also on its community, site and forum users, feedback and hard work from everyone and its wonderful and pleasant state of mind. It’s a piece of my life that is related here and the story of a great both virtual and real experience which we owe you a lot, Kazunori san!!
All due respect to you, for providing dream and entertainment every time we launch the game.
Frizzou (Christophe) –
http://www.gtplay.com
